Delta Oil Mill in Mississippi cited by US Department of Labor's OSHA for 25 safety and health violations following worker injury

GREENWOOD, Miss. – The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration has cited Delta Oil Mill for 25 safety and health violations, carrying proposed penalties of $83,415, following an inspection at the company's facility in Greenwood. OSHA initiated its inspection in May after receiving a complaint alleging an employee sustained a back injury as a result of falling through a floor opening and landing on a powered industrial truck.

Twenty-two serious safety and health violations include failing to guard wall openings, opened-sided platforms and floor holes without a cover or standard railings; keep floors clean and dry of water and cotton lint; provide specific procedures for controlling hazardous energy; document certification of periodic inspections of the energy control procedures; train employees on the company's lockout/tagout program; provide training on electrical safety work practices; implement written electrical safety work practice procedures; post signage and safety symbols to warn employees of electrical hazards; provide employees confined space training before entering a railcar; inform workers of the hazards they face before entering a railcar and poor housekeeping. Other violations involve allowing employees to use a forklift inappropriately to elevate workers; entering a railcar without a retrieval line attached to the body harness; blocking access to electrical boxes and several instances of unguarded equipment. A serious violation occurs when there is substantial probability that death or serious physical harm could result from a hazard about which the employer knew or should have known.

Three other-than-serious violations were also cited for not having the OSHA 300-A form certified by a company executive, failing to ensure workers were wearing hearing protection and the steps on stairway were bent causing the rise height not be uniform on the stairway in the old prep room. An other-than-serious violation is one that has a direct relationship to job safety and health, but probably would not cause death or serious physical harm.

"Our inspection found serious hazards that reflect management's neglect of maintenance and safety procedures," said Clyde Payne, OSHA's area director in Jackson, Miss. "It is imperative that the employer immediately eliminate these hazards from the workplace to avoid another employee being seriously injured."

Delta Oil Mill is a manufacturer of cottonseed oil, cottonseed meal, cottonseed hulls, linters, cottonseed meal fertilizer and whole cottonseed. The company has 15 business days from receipt of the citations to comply, request an informal conference with OSHA's Jackson area director or contest the citations and penalties before the independent Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission.

To ask questions, obtain compliance assistance, file a complaint, or report workplace hospitalizations, fatalities or situations posing imminent danger to workers, the public should call OSHA's toll-free hotline at 800-321-OSHA (6742) or the agency's Jackson office at 601-965-4606.

Under the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, employers are responsible for providing safe and healthful workplaces for their employees. OSHA's role is to ensure these conditions for America's working men and women by setting and enforcing standards, and providing training, education and assistance. For more information, visit http://www.osha.gov.

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U.S. Department of Labor news materials are accessible at http://www.dol.gov. The information above is available in large print, Braille or CD from the COAST office upon request by calling 216-893-7828 or TTY 216-893-7755.

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